THE perilous, seemingly impossible ' assignment of exploring the secret world of the Arab commandos for this week's cover story fell principally to Beirut Bureau Chief Edward Hughes. Meanwhile Jerusalem Stringer Marlin Levin and Rome Correspondent John Shaw pursued essential details on the Israeli side.

Summing up the complexity of his mission, Hughes reports :

"In Amman, Jordan's capital, I discovered that the greatest single danger was not the risk of an Israeli bullet or the stealthy trips I took with the commandos along the Jordan Valley. It was the risk of spending all my time in a hotel room waiting for telephone calls that might never come, or under street lights at secret rendezvous points. For appointments that might never be kept. For the big brains of the fedayeen are not down by the riverside, but in and around Amman. To find them is tricky and tedious. Because of their inbred sense of secrecy and sheer disorganization, it is nightmarishly hard to get these people to cooperate on a project like ours. All we wanted was to know all about their secret bases, their secret techniques, their secret identities."

In making his contacts, Hughes had the assistance of Abu Said, a stringer who began filing to TIME 18 years ago. His connections were unfailing, but the most: vital contact for our cover story proved easier than seemed likely, Hughes reported:

"/ put the arm on a fedayeen taxi driver (and gave him $20), to take me to the 'secret headquarters' of Abu Ammar [code name of Arafat]. To my surprise, he did. Four hours later, by an olive grove, I watched the Fatah leader transact business with two dozen runners, shake the hands of wounded soldiers, and shared a slit trench with him."

Correspondent Shaw, concentrating on military action from the Israeli side, cabled:

"This war is hard to find; it flares and fades. Some time ago, I watched the biggest fight yet, sparked by the Fatah from a safe spot in a Muslim cemetery near Jericho. Through binoculars, there was a grandstand view of Jordanian artillery pounding Israeli armor. To get around Israeli military censorship, we devised a code with a friendly kibbutznik in a strategically located collective farm by the Jordan, who phoned us tips. 'Birds' were Israeli bombers, 'eggs' were bombs and so on."

Reporter Levin sought additional information about our cover subject, El Fatah Leader Arafat.

"In a desolate quarter of Jerusalem, I met a schoolteacher cousin of Arafat, who said she would recollect what she could and tell me if 1 would come to her apartment in a few days, but only after dark. Two nights later, we met in her house at the end of an unlighted stony track at the edge of Jerusalem. She spoke willingly, but when I asked her why she insisted on seeing me at night, she said only, 'It is Ramadan and we fast during the day; I could not serve you coffee before dark.' "

Our story was written by Clell Bryan t; edited by Jason McManus and researched by Ursula Nadasdy.

The Cover: Acrylic paint on Masonite, by Argentine-born Hector Garrido.

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